


on finding your way;

by crossroadswrite



Series: on life and love; [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Canon Divergence, Child Yuri Plisetsky, Dad Katsuki Yuuri, Dad Victor Nikiforov, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Growing Up Together, Kid Fic, M/M, POV Yuri Plisetsky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-13 07:47:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11180250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossroadswrite/pseuds/crossroadswrite
Summary: When Otabek has to leave back to the dormitories, he turns to Yuri, looking slightly nervous and asks, “So, are we friends or what?”Yuri stares at him. “Beka, I let you pet my cat.”(OR: 5 times Yuri Plisetsky gets lost, and 1 time he's exactly where he's supposed to be.)





	on finding your way;

**Author's Note:**

  * For [minime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/minime/gifts).



> First and foremost, shout out to my beautiful and talented beta [LadyDrace](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyDrace)!!
> 
> Secondly, this is for Belles who has unconditionally supported me for so long and basically single handed pulled my ass out of a writing slump. I promised I'd write her some otayuri after her finals, and it took me, like, a month, but I finally finished it!!! Granted that this is twice the lenght I expected it to be. So Belles!! Thank you!!!!!! I hope you like it, I tried my best!! I'm sorry if it's not as good as it could be!
> 
> Thirdly! Even though this is part of a series, you _could_ read it as a stand-alone. All you need to know about the first fic is: in which everything is the same but Yuri is Victor's five year old bratty child.
> 
> Fourthly! For the people waiting for an update on "on growing;" I'll update next week. I'm very sorry I couldn't get a chapter ready for this monday. I didn't really have the time, please enjoy our teeny Yura growing up and finding love while I work on teeny Yura being a cute little brat and kicking his dad's ass into finding love.

**А.**

The very first time Yuri meets Otabek Altin it doesn’t count.

The first time they meet, Yuri is four years old and already possesses the kind of stubbornness that leads him not to listen to adults about  _ not wandering off _ or, later in life,  _ not overdoing it  _ and  _ no you can’t just fly to Kazakhstan when you don’t want to deal with your parents. _

So, when Dad sets him next to Yakov and tells him not to wander off, Yuri, obviously, wanders off.

In his defense, he knew where he wanted to go – to the front of the skating arena where he saw a lady selling keychains with little animals on them.

Also in his defense, he’s four years old and shorter than most kids his age, so getting completely and irrevocably lost is unavoidable.

Yuri glances around him, trying to peer around adults to see where he came from. He stands on his tip toes, stretching as much as he can, fists balled up as he realizes that he’s  _ lost _ and there’s so many people, and now something bad might happen to him. Grandpa and Yakov always tell him he shouldn’t run off because there’s bad people who do bad things.

Yuri feels his bottom lip tremble and bites down on it. He can’t cry. He  _ can’t _ . Because crying is for babies and he’s not a baby anymore. He’s big and he knows how to ice skate and he’s going to grow up to be the  _ best ice skater _ and best ice skaters never cry because Dad is the best and he never cries.

His eyes and throat start hurting, so Yuri bites harder on his lip and stretches to get taller.

“Are you lost?” someone asks.

Yuri startles and falls back on his heels, turning to see a boy, taller than him with dark hair and serious eyes.

“No!” he shouts.

The boy raises his eyebrows at him and Yuri looks away.

“Where’s your family?”

Yuri shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“You lost them?”

Yuri shrugs vaguely again, tentatively looking up at the boy.

“We should go find them,” the boy says. “It’s not good to wander around alone.”

“You’re a kid too,” Yuri says. “How can you find  _ anyone _ ?”

“My sister is just over there,” he points to a tall girl that looks almost like an adult. “She can find your family,” he says confidently. “She’s really smart.”

Yuri glares dubiously at the teenage girl chattering with her friend, and then squints at the boy.

“So,” the boy prompts, “are you coming or what?”

Yuri shuffles uncomfortably and decides that going with this boy is better than getting even more lost.

“Okay.”

The boy gives a little nod and grabs Yuri’s hand, pulling him towards his sister. Yuri lets himself be dragged.

“Did you pick up another stray?” the girl asks when she sees them approach.

“He got lost,” the boy says.

The girl peers down at Yuri and her eyes go wide.

“ _ Oh my god _ ,” she breathes out.

Her friend suddenly grabs her arm. “Isn’t that Victor Nikiforov’s kid?”

“ _ Oh my god!” _

Yuri uncomfortably shuffles behind the boy.

“Dayana, Mom says it’s not polite to stare,” the boy says. “We should help him.”

The girl blinks, and shifts her gaze back to the boy. “Right. You’re right, Beka.” She leans down towards Yuri a bit and Yuri leans back. “Sorry for scaring you, Yuri. I know where your dad is, do you want me to take you to him or do you want me to call security to take you?”

Yuri looks nervously between her and the boy, and then shrugs. “You can take me, I guess.”

She smiles and straightens up. “Come on, then. He must be worried sick.”

«»

When they make it back, Dad all but yanks him from Beka’s hand and into a crushing hug that makes it hard to breathe.

Yuri hugs him back because he’s really scared and it feels nice.

“You really need to stop doing these things to me, Yura. I’ll die of a heart attack, and then what?”

“I’ll go live with Grandpa.”

Dad pulls back and looks at him with that  _ I’m upset, but I’m happy you’re okay  _ smile, and shakes his head. “So cold, my son. How will I survive?”

Yura pats him on the cheek. “You have Makkachin.”

Dad huffs a laugh, shaking his head slightly. “My only consolation.”

Muffled chatter catches their attention, and they both turn to see the two girls and the boy still standing around, talking to Yakov.

“Hello,” Dad says, giving them his photography smile. Yuri doesn’t like it when he smiles like that. He does it a lot around people.

“They helped me get back. You should give them something,” Yuri says. “Like when we found that cat and that lady gave us cookies.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have any cookies,” Dad says, catching the attention of the others. “Will a photo work?”

The girls make loud noises that make Yuri want to cover his ears, and the boy shrugs like he couldn’t really care.

Yuri kicks until Dad puts him down. He hates being in pictures with his Dad’s fans. Some of them try to touch him or pick him up. He hates having to look pretty for them too, and he hates how some people get mad when he doesn’t smile.

He goes to stand next to Beka and watches as the girls takes pictures.

“Don’t you want something for finding me?”

Beka frowns. “Why would I want something?”

Yuri shrugs. “It’s what people do, right?”

Beka shrugs.

Yuri opens his mouth because that’s  _ weird _ , but Beka’s sister comes back, thanking Dad and ushering Beka away.

Yuri shuts his mouth with a click.

“Goodbye, Yuri,” Beka says, waving.

Yuri waves back, still frowning.

And that’s that.

«»

(The first time doesn’t count, because neither of them remembers. Not until years and years in the future when Dayana, pouring over an old photo album, says, “Hey, remember that time you found Victor Nikiforov’s son, and I thought that was the closest to Victor Nikiforov I’d ever get, and now he comes over on holidays?”)

 

 

**B.**

Yuri had been tricked, conned, cheated, deceived,  _ victimized _ .

When his dads had told him they thought he was ready to have a little more responsibility, he thought they meant he was ready to have free access to Dad’s credit card and also a cat,  _ not _ that he was ready to start cleaning his room alone and do more chores.

Well, he still had gotten the cat which he had named Potya and loved with everything he had, but that was not the  _ point _ .

The point is that now that his dumb dads gave him more responsibility Yuri has to go out on  _ errands _ , and he hates those, because they’re always boring and pointless. Like taking out the trash, or giving Yakov some papers, or going around the skating arena to go get the new boy who’s supposed to join his ballet class.

Yuri is a hundred percent sure anyone else could have done it, but because Yuuri is teaching this class this year, and Yuri is the only one he’s comfortable sending off, it’s now Yuri’s job to go get whatever weak idiot who couldn’t handle the advanced class.

Yuri huffs in frustration and stomps down another corridor. Then he stops and blinks, taking in the familiar poster of Dad with one of his gold medals on his neck. The exact same poster he remembers passing by at least two times before.

He groans and kicks the floor.

This isn’t  _ fair _ , he just wants to learn ballet so he can win more gold medals than his two dumb dads combined and learn how to do the cool upside down thing Yuuri does.

“Are you lost?” someone asks and Yuri whirls around to see a boy, taller and older than him, standing at the corner he just passed.

“Of course not. I basically  _ live _ here, so it’s stupid that I’d be lost.”

The boy stares for a handful of seconds, just enough to make Yuri glare self-consciously.

“Okay,” he says.

“Okay!” Yuri huffs and crosses his arms over his chest.

There’s a beat of silence, then the boy says, “I’m Otabek Altin. I’m supposed to transfer to Mr. Katsuki’s ballet class.”

Well, at least he found who he was looking for.

“I’m Yuri Plisetsky,” he announces. “I’m supposed to take you there.”

“But you’re lost.”

“I’m  _ not _ lost. I know exactly where I’m going. And now that you’re here we can go.”

The boy raises his eyebrows, but doesn’t seem inclined to argue.

“Okay.”

“Okay!”

They stare at each other.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Otabek says.

Yuri huffs and marches past him.

“Follow me. We’ll be there in no time at all!”

«»

Yuuri finds them in the opposite side of the arena and has to guide them all the way back to the correct practice room.

«»

Otabek sucks at ballet.

Yuri watches as he fails to hold a position for the third time, while Yuri has been holding it with ease and grace.

“Why does he do it if he sucks at it?” he asks Yuuri, when the class is done, when they’re doing their post-ballet routine in the locker rooms, and Yuri is waiting for him to finish getting things out of his locker.

“It’s part of the training camp, you know Coach Yakov makes all his skaters do ballet, Yura.”

“But he  _ sucks _ . How is he going to skate if he sucks at ballet?”

“Not all skaters do ballet,” Yuuri says.

Yuri stops because  _ what _ . “That sounds like a lie.”

Yuuri motions for him to turn around and starts re-doing his ponytail. “Different skaters are good at different things, and not all of them choose ballet. Some choose different dances, some don’t choose a dance at all.”

Yuri kicks his feet in the air and leans back on his hands, considering this.

“So, Otabek is good at skating even if he’s not good at ballet.”

Yuuri finishes tying his hair and helps him with his backpack.

“I heard his jumps are really good.”

“Huh,” Yuri says, face scrunching up in a considering frown. “Can I watch him skate? I wanna see how his jumps are.”

Yuuri leans down and lets Yuri re-clip his hair clips to keep his bangs from his eyes. At this point it’s part of their post ballet routine to do this. They’ve been doing it since Yuri was just about six, and even though he’s older and shies away from holding hands and hugs in public, this is still okay.

“Why don’t you ask coach Yakov? We can make pirozhki and ask him tomorrow.”

“Okay! But I get to decide what goes in it.”

«»

It takes Yuri exactly ten minutes watching Otabek perform jumps, and brush off falls like they’re nothing to decide that Otabek is  _ cool _ .

“Teach me how to do that triple,” he demands, barely giving Otabek time to put his blade guards on.

Otabek jerks back minutely and blinks confusedly at Yuri.

“Teach me how to do that triple and how to jump so far! I’ll help you with ballet. Yuuri has been teaching me since  _ forever _ . Also I’ll kick anyone who makes fun of you.”

Otabek blinks again, slower.

“Okay.”

“Okay!” Yuri grins.

«»

Yuri never really had a friend before. The kids at school are stupid and boring and don’t really care about skating, and a lot of the other skaters his age don’t like how good Yuri is at everything.

It feels weird to have Otabek who instead of pushing him down when Yuri masters something he’s trying to teach him in record time, looks wide-eyed in admiration and tries even harder to better himself. Yuri is at a loss of what to do here.

He asks Dad, but Dad never really had a normal friend, so he asks Yuuri, who is a little more helpful.

Yuuri tells him he used to go to Yuuko’s house and take Yuuko to his house so they could watch skating competitions and she could pet his dog.

So, naturally, Yuri’s only option is to invite Otabek over.

“When you get in,” Yuri tells him as they take the elevator up, “you have to sit on the couch right away.”

“Why?”

“The dogs get excited with new people and they jump  _ everywhere _ and bark. So you have to sit down until they calm down. But don’t worry Potya doesn’t jump around because she’s better than all the dogs. You can pet her, if you want.”

“Are you okay with dogs, Otabek?” Yuuri asks. “If you’re not, we can put them in the bedroom for a bit.”

“It’s fine,” Otabek says. “I like dogs.”

“What about cats?” Yuri questions.

“I like cats too.”

Yuri grins. “You’re gonna love Potya. She’s  _ the best _ .”

The elevator doors ding open and Yuuri ushers them out, towards the apartment door where the muffled barking is coming from.

Before Yuuri has a chance to even get his keys out, the door bangs open and Dad beams at them. “My Yuuris!” he says, just as excited as the dogs who swarm them.

Yuri grabs Otabek’s hand and drags him towards the couch before the dogs start jumping on them, leaving his dumb dad to jump on Yuuri.

“My little Yura is too old for hugs,” Dad despairs. “You’re breaking my heart.”

“Stop being embarrassing!” Yuri shouts, flushing slightly, he looks over at Otabek, but the other boy seems to be busy getting the approval of one of their biggest dogs.

Sochi sniffs Otabek’s hand distrustfully before nosing at it, sitting back and panting happily as Otabek pets him.

Yuri has no idea where Makkachin and Zuzu are, but Makkachin is old and sleeps all the time and Zuzu is generally disinterested in anyone who isn’t Yuuri.

“Dad! Where’s Potya?”

As if on cue there’s soft chiding and something thudding to the ground from the kitchen. A minute later Dad emerges, carrying a disgruntled Potya who’s trying her best to squirm out of his grip.

Potya’s dislike for Dad is almost as funny as Zuzu’s disinterest for him.

Dad deposits her in his lap, and Potya immediately starts rubbing herself all over Yuri’s hands, purring contentedly.

“You can pet her too. She’s friendly.”

Otabek brings his hand up so Potya can sniff it before he carefully starts scratching behind her ears. Potya melts, sprawling between their laps, and her purring ramps up.

“She’s a good cat,” Otabek says.

“The  _ best _ cat.” Yuri corrects, solemnly.

«»

When Otabek has to leave back to the dormitories, he turns to Yuri, looking slightly nervous and asks, “So, are we friends or what?”

Yuri stares at him. “Beka, I  _ let you pet my cat _ .”

«»

When Otabek has to leave Yuri absolutely does not cry.

“Blow your nose for me, darling,” Dad says, squeezing a tissue paper over Yuri’s nose. “You’ll see your friend again, it’s fine.”

“I-it’s  _ not _ fine.”

Yuuri comes in from the kitchen and presses a mug of tea into his hands. “You can call him whenever you like. And I’m sure you can visit each other.”

“Kazakhstan isn’t that far,” Dad agrees, wiping Yuri’s cheeks with his sleeves. “So don’t cry.”

“I’m  _ not _ crying,” he hiccups.

Yuuri sits on his right on the couch, bracketing Yuri between him and Dad, and then starts rubbing his back. “There, there.”

 

 

**Г.**

The thing Yuri hates most about competitions are the  _ stares _ when he walks into a room.

Yuri doesn’t really have a problem with people staring at him when they’re measuring him up and trying to assess how much of a competition he actually is. He  _ does _ have a problem with the whispers and the giddy giggling when his parents walk in after him.

It’s annoying to the point where Yuri has asked them to let Yakov be the one to accompany him, but then Dad had gotten that slightly hurt kicked puppy expression that Yuuri matched perfectly, so Yuri just suffers through the giggling and the  _ staring _ .

That’s what he gets for having two parents that redefined what being a skater means, he guesses.

Yuri scowls, glaring at the kid with the red streak in his hair that looks like he’s about to spontaneously combust as he stares at Yuuri.

“Don’t frown, Yura. Your face will get stuck like that,” Dad singsongs, grabbing a hair tie and a hairbrush from the make-up bag in Yuri’s suitcase.

Yuri pulls his face into a tighter frown, scrunching his features up and scowling up at him.

“Ah, there he is. The most beautiful boy in the world,” Dad coos.

Yuuri looks up from where he had been carefully taking Yuri’s costume out of his bag and smiles. “Wow, he looks so much like you right now, it’s scary.”

Yuri’s frown melts into snickers, while his dad gasps dramatically.

“ _ Yuuri _ ,” Dad complains.

“It’s probably the wrinkles,” Yuri chimes in and this time Dad drops the hairbrush and hair ties back in the bag to grab the handheld mirror and inspect his face closely on it.

Yuuri picks them up and discretely offers his palm to Yuri. Yuri slaps it quietly in a discreet high-five, before turning and letting Yuuri work on his hair for his performance.

“Maybe I should do a face lift,” Dad mumbles. Yuri can see him stretching the skin close to his temples from the corner of his eye and snickers.

“I love your laugh lines, Vitya,” Yuuri says, brushing Yuri’s hair out of his eyes. The hairbrush jerks, and snags a little in Yuri’s hair, and he turns with a hiss to see his father shaking Yuuri in a hug.

_ Ugh, they’re so gross. _

“Victor, we’re going to make Yuri late.”

Dad keeps squeezing him, cooing nonsense that make Yuri wrinkle his nose. He kicks him in the shin to make him stop.

“ _ Dad!” _

“Aw, do you want a hug too, Yura?”

Yuri backs away so fast, his back hits the lockers. “ _ Don’t you dare _ !”

«»

The thing he loves the most about competitions is when his and Beka’s overlap.

They’re both busy training during the skating season, and in the off season it’s hard to find time that will fit both their schedules, with ice shows and family commitments and whatnot.

So Yuri always gets excited to see Beka during competitions.

What he does not like as much, however, is the confusing hallways of the hotel they’re staying at, and how he seems to have completely lost his way. It probably doesn’t help that he can’t remember what floor him and his parents were staying on, much less the room number.

Well, it’s not as much a question of him not remembering as the fact that Dad had been draped all over Yuuri while Yuuri tried to get the keys to their room back from the reception desk at check-in, and Yuri had immediately put on his headphones and walked away as fast as he could.

So, really, this is all their fault. It’s been eight years, you’d think they would have had enough of each other by now.

Turning another corner – and really, who the hell designed this floorplan – he finds the elevators.

Yuri punches the button to call it and waits impatiently as the elevator comes to him.

It arrives with a ding, and when he steps inside he looks critically at the buttons for a moment before mashing all of them. He guesses the floor with the freaked out living legends will be the right one. Dad isn’t difficult to spot most of the time.

This had been a stupid idea.

Yuri knew it was a stupid idea when he decided to go through with it, but his phone was out of battery and he had lost his charger somewhere between the plane and the hotel. Which could be fine. He could’ve just asked to borrow one of his parent’s chargers, but that meant telling them he had lost it which would get Yuri the  _ I told you so _ looks.

So, logically, instead of asking for a charger and owning up to losing his, Yuri decided to go stomping around every floor in the hotel trying to find Beka, instead of just calling him and arranging to meet up.

Yuri leans back against the wall of the elevator, glaring at the doors as the elevator takes him down one floor, then another, then another, and pressing all the buttons in the elevator probably wasn’t the smartest idea.

Yuri considers getting out, and going to the reception to call his parents’ room like some sort of lost child at a grocery store, when the doors ding open to reveal Otabek standing there, phone pressed into his ear and a harried look about him.

“Beka!” Yuri cries, relieved beyond reason.

He quickly steps out of the elevator.

Beka looks at him for a moment before saying, “I’ve found him. Don’t worry, Mr. Katsuki, I’ll take him to you.” He pauses, looking down and away in embarrassment. “There’s really no need- I- Yes, of course. See you in a bit then.”

He hangs up and levels Yuri with a  _ look _ . The same he’s seen him give his sisters and cousins when they’re being particularly difficult.

“What?” He asks, crossing his arms.

Beka raises an eyebrow.

“My phone was dead, and I wanted to find you. What was I supposed to do? Ask my parents for a charger after I lost mine for the third time this month?”

“So you tried to look for me?”

Yuri uncrosses his arms, shifts on his feet a little. “The hotel isn’t that big,” he says with a shrug

“It’s a skyscraper, Yura. It has twenty five floors.”

Yuri punches him in the shoulder lightly. “Stop trying to logic me. Are we gonna hang out or what?”

“I’m going to take you to your parents before they call the police.”

“They’re not going to-“

Beka raises an eyebrow at him.

“Okay,  _ Dad _ might call the police, but Yuuri would stop him. I’ve been gone for, like, ten minutes, he doesn’t need to be that dramatic.”

“You’ve been gone for an hour.”

Yuri freezes. “Oh shit. Okay, let’s go before he tries to close the whole city down or something,” he says and starts marching down the hallway, expecting Beka to follow.

Beka does not.

He turns to look at his friend with a raised eyebrow.

Beka shakes his head, and now he’s smiling a little bit. He presses the button of the elevator next to the one Yuri stepped out of. “They’re two floors down and in the exact opposite direction you were going.”

Yuri flushes. “Whatever.”

«»

Dad picks him up off the ground and squeezes him as soon as he sees him. Yuri tries to push at him because he’s  _ so  _ embarrassing, but then Yuuri joins in, squeezing Yuri and Dad both and Yuri just kind of gives up and decides this is his punishment for running off without thinking about what he was doing first.

“Thank you so much for finding Yuri,” Yuuri says and bows slightly to Otabek. Otabek nods a little awkwardly.

“I really didn’t do anything.”

“We’re still thankful for finding our little troublemaker,” Dad chimes in.

“ _ Dad _ ,” he hisses.

He’s going to  _ die _ . Why can’t they be cool when his friends are around? He considers for a second locking himself in the bathroom to avoid whatever next embarrassing thing is about to come out of their mouths. He only doesn’t because he couldn’t bear leaving Beka alone with them.

“We’ll treat you to dinner as a thank you,” Yuuri says and  _ oh hell yeah _ .

“There’s really no need for-“

Yuri turns the puppy eyes he’s learned from Makkachin on him. “You can’t leave me alone with them!”

Beka raises an eyebrow and lowers the other in a clear  _ they are your parents, Yura _ even as he says, “I’ll go, but I have to talk with my coach first.”

Yuri doesn’t whoop only because whooping is extremely uncool.

«»

“Ugh, why are they like this,” Yuri says, scrunching up his nose at the image his parents make, Dad trying to feed Yuuri some of his food even as Yuuri argues that they  _ ordered the same thing _ but opening his mouth anyway, because Dad pouts like a kid.

“They’re married,” Otabek offers, sliding all the chorizo in his plate closer to Yuri.

“If I ever tell you I want to get married,” Yuri says, stabbing the chorizo from Otabek’s plate and plopping it in his mouth, “I want you to punch me square in the face, to knock some sense into me.”

“Sure. Tell me if you change your mind, so I don’t just punch you for nothing.”

Yuri sticks his tongue out at him.

«»

“Beka!” Yuri yells from the bleachers, brushing off a haggard Dad who’s trying to re-do his hair with Yuri bouncing around and running away. “Davai!”

Beka looks up from the rink and gives him a thumbs up.

«»

Yuri stands on the podium with Beka. He has silver around his neck and he’s kinda bummed that Beka beat him for gold, but if there’s anyone who is worthy of standing above Yuri on a podium is Beka, so.

“Next time, I’ll crush you for gold.”

Beka nods with a satisfied smile. “I can’t wait.”

 

 

**Д.**

Yuri might’ve done a very stupid thing.

“Beka!”

In the past, he’s done stupid things, like practice quads when there wasn’t anyone around, and trying to get his cat out of the neighbour’s windowsill by  _ climbing _ into his own windowsill on the seventh floor.

But this-

“Beka!”

This might just win number one on the list of stupid things Yuri has ever done in his life.

“Beka!”

Not only was this completely reckless but also possibly illegal.

“Be-“

“Yuri,” someone calls and Yuri whirls to see Beka,  _ finally _ , standing behind him. He grins, relieved. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you,  _ obviously _ . What does it look like?”

Beka frowns, looking standoffish. Yuri frowns back at him.

“Do you parents know you’re here?”

“They don’t need to know where I am all the time,” he spits, annoyed. “I’m  _ fifteen _ , not  _ five _ .”

“You’re also in a different country,” Beka points out.

“Details,” Yuri dismisses with a wave of his hand. “So, are you going to invite me to your house or what?”

Beka sighs and takes a step to the side, motioning for Yuri to follow.

“Sure. But next time you visit just text me to come pick you up. The neighbours came complaining to my mom that there was a small angry Russian shouting for me in the streets.”

Yuri flushes and looks away.

“My phone died,” he says as they start walking.

“And you’ve lost your charger.”

“People lose chargers all the time. It  _ happens _ .”

Beka gives him a  _ sure, Yura _ look and continues walking, hands in his pockets. “I’ll lend you mine,” he says because he’s the best of friends. “And as soon as your phone has charged you’re going to call your parents.”

Yuri takes it back. Beka  _ sucks _ .

“Absolutely not.”

“I’ve already texted them,” Beka informs him. “When they saw you were missing they called my house.”

“Why would you-“

“Because you’re  _ fifteen _ and crossed a border without informing the people in charge of you. I could be charged with a felony for kidnapping you.”

“They would  _ never _ -“

“Regardless if they would or would not charge me for aiding and abetting their runaway son, they must’ve been terrified, not knowing where you were.”

Yuri grinds his teeth together, knuckles going white on the handle of his suitcase.

“Whatever the reason you ran away-“

“I’m  _ not _ running-“

“ _ Whatever the reason _ ,” Otabek interrupts almost forcefully, and Yuri’s mouth shuts with a click. “I’m not going to make you leave. You know you’re always welcome here, but running away isn’t a solution.”

Yuri huffs.

This is stupid.  _ All of it _ .

“Fine. As soon as my phone is  _ fully _ charged I’ll call my dumb parents.”

Beka nods once. “Thank you.”

Yuri rolls his eyes because that’s such a Beka thing to do, thanking Yuri for not being a brat for two seconds. “Whatever.”

«»

As soon as Yuri steps into Beka’s house the ninth circle of hell opens itself to him, and not even because the first thing Beka’s mom does as soon as Yuri has a foot in the door is drag him to the kitchen and scold him on all the trouble he’s putting his parents through.

Oh, no. Yuri’s very own brand of personal hell comes in swarms with grubby little hands and high-pitched voices.

“Are you Otabek’s boyfriend?”

“Why is your hair so  _ long _ ?”

“Do you wanna play house with us?”

“Do you wanna see Dayana’s bunny?”

“How old are you? I’m  _ almost _ eight! You look like you’re twelve. Are you twelve?”

It’s not that he hates children, it’s just that he has no idea what to do with them.

Here’s the thing: Yuri Plisetsky is  _ not _ a people’s person. He has a very small pool of  _ very close _ friends that were hard earned, and he’s not terribly good when he meets new people. Not that it really bothers him, it’s just how it is.

With children, you get the added bonus of not being able to do any swearing or be brash or do  _ anything _ in fear of making one of the brats break into tears, because  _ then _ you have to deal with an overprotective parent on top of a crying child.

“Beka!” he shouts, slowly backing away from the small mob of children.

Beka peeks into the hallway where the children have ambushed him, pressing down on his amused smile when he sees the predicament Yuri has found himself in.

“Yuri,” he says calmly, making all the brats swivel around towards him. “My mother is asking for your help in the kitchen, if you’re not too busy.”

“Beka, play with us!” one of the kids begs, completely disregarding Yuri and running at Otabek. The other kids start pushing each other to get to him too, each of them chiming something different in their whiny little voices.

Yuri gives Beka a salute, silently commending his courage, which gets him another one of those amused not-quite-smiles, before he hightails it the hell out of there and into the kitchen.

He hovers in the doorway, unsure if he’ll get scolded again by Beka’s mom or not.

“You can start peeling the potatoes, Yuri,” Beka’s mom says without turning.

One of Otabek’s aunts sets a pot fit for cooking small children on top of the table and motions to one of the benches under it.

Yuri sits and peels potatoes, safe from the small hoard of terrors for now.

«»

“You could’ve warned me you were going to have a family dinner with your bajillion cousins,” Yuri says, staying out of the way as Otabek lifts up one of his two year old cousins and lets them wash their own hands in the bathroom faucet, if splashing water around is considered washing hands.

“I did mention it.” Otabek turns to him, eyebrows slightly raised. “You could’ve warned me you planned a surprise visit.”

Yuri rocks back on his heels with a huff. “I see your point, but in my defense I didn’t  _ plan _ it.”

Otabek does this head tilt thing that Yuri interprets as  _ on your own time, whenever you want to talk about it _ .

Yuri appreciates Beka not pushing. For now, at least.

«»

“Hold this,” one of Beka’s aunts says as they’re doing the clean-up from dinner, and passes an infant into Yuri’s arms, as she goes off to take a call.

Yuri holds the kid at arms-length, barely suppressing the instinctual reaction to fling it across the room as far away from him as possible.

“Um.”

The thing kicks his legs at him enthusiastically like it’s trying to swim through the air. “Buh,” it says.

“ _ Um _ . Beka! Help!”

Oh fuck, he’s going to drop the thing, he doesn’t know how to hold a baby. And then Beka will be mad at him because he dropped his cousin on its head and stop being friends with him, and then Yuri will  _ die alone _ because he’s obnoxious and loud and no one likes him.

He backs up slowly, until he feels the couch hit the back of his knees and then, very slowly, he sits.

He can’t drop it if he’s sitting.

“Beka!” he calls again.

The chances of Otabek hearing him over the sounds of other children squealing and adults talking isn’t the best right now. But he still has to try, because  _ again _ Yuri is  _ not good with children _ .

He brings it closer to him, grimacing and sets it down on his lap.

It leans backwards, staring directly into Yuri’s soul.

Yuri very pointedly picks the child up and turns it around, so it’s not staring at him anymore. And this way, its back and head are to his chest. You’re supposed to support the head right? Because the things are so useless that they can’t support themselves? Fuck if he knows.

God, he hates children.

“Otabek! If you’re my friend you will help me right now!”

The thing latches onto Yuris’ finger and starts waving its grubby little baby hands around. Yuri presses a hand against its chest before it overbalances and falls to its death.

Why anyone would want one of these is completely beyond him.

Otabek comes around the couch and gives him an amused look. There’s water splattered against the front of his shirt and Yuri guesses he was probably helping his mother with the dishes.

“You seem like you’ve got a handle on this,” Otabek says and Yuri is going to  _ murder him _ .

“It’s causing me physical pain to have it on my lap. Take it off.”

Otabek raises an eyebrow and takes his phone out of his pocket.

“Don’t you  _ da _ -“

The flash of the camera goes off.

“Betrayal! I can’t believe you’d do this to me. I am your  _ friend _ .”

The thing starts making fussing noises and Yuri turns wide-eyed to Otabek, ready to fling it into his arms.

“If you bounce your knee gently, she’ll quiet down.”

Yuri bounces his knee and hears the distinct sound of a phone start recording.

“I will burn everything you love,” he threatens, over the soft cooing sounds the thing in his lap is making.

Otabek laughs at him.

«»

“I’m stealing this shirt,” Yuri announces, plopping himself down onto Beka’s bed and throwing his feet in his lap.

Serves him right for refusing to delete those cursed images from his phone.

“That’s fine. It’s tight around the shoulders for me.”

Yuri eyes Beka’s shoulders and tries not to glare at how the shirt is so large on him it slips a little bit around the collarbone. He can’t wait for his growth spurt to finally hit him so he can get taller, even if it’s going to fuck up his skating.

“How’s Potya?” Beka asks, and what he means is  _ why did you run away from your parents _ , but Yuri is going to ignore that for a little bit longer.

“Good. I wish I could’ve brought her along.”

“She always tries to get into Bear’s aquarium.”

Yuri snickers. “I still can’t believe you named a turtle Bear.”

“My sister named him. He’s a good turtle, Yura.”

Yuri snorts, before he remembers the thing he threw haphazardly in his suitcase before leaving.

“Oh, right. I got-“ He twists and stretches so he’s hanging off bed, trying to reach his suitcase where it’s pushed up against Beka’s dresser. It’s a little out of his reach but Yuri will be fucked if he has to get up to get the stupid gift he got Beka, so he stretches further and Beka jerks to grab the back of his shirt so Yuri doesn’t slam face first on the floor.

“ _ Yuri _ !”

Yuri paws at his blessedly open suitcase until his fingers touch something smooth and cold. He grabs it and starts backing up. Beka helps by hauling him by the back of the shirt back onto the bed.

“You could have gotten up.”

Yuri shoves his gift in his face. “I got you a rock!”

Beka blinks at him, before his lips quirk in a smile. “Thank you.”

Yuri grins, pleased.

“We went to the Hasetsu for Katsudon after I won gold at Junior World’s and I found it on the beach. It looks like Bear’s shell so I thought I should get it for you.”

“It’s a very neat rock. I’ll clean it up and put it in Bear’s aquarium later.”

Yuri falls back into the mattress, and stares up at the stray glow in the dark stars still glued to Beka’s ceiling.

“Are you ready for your senior debut?” Beka asks, and Yuri sees what he’s doing. Beka has a way of asking obliquely what he wants to actually ask. He uses safe territory to get Yuri to talk about things that make him uncomfortable. When he asks if he’s ready, he’s asking if everything is okay.

Yuri isn’t fooled by it.

“Hell yeah. Dad is having me change up my presentation this year. For my short I’ll do a different composition of the program Yuuri skated when Dad first started coaching him.”

Yuri’s excited about it. He likes the parallelism of it, and he likes that he gets a different version of one of Yuuri’s best programs. Just because he has been living with him for a decade now it doesn’t mean that Yuri stopped looking up to Yuuri as a skater.

“Cool. Is Yuuri helping choreograph your free skate?”

Yuri scowls at the ceiling. “He’s  _ distracted _ .” He huffs. “ _ Whatever _ .”

Beka doesn’t really say anything to that. He knows better than to push for an answer.

Yuri continues scowling at the ceiling for a solid minute, before he says: “they’re talking about getting a kid. Which, you know, it’s  _ fine _ . I don’t care.”

He exhales harshly, pausing in his rant.

After three seconds of silence Beka puts a hand on his knee and Yuri starts up again.

“I mean I’m part of this family too, right? They could  _ ask _ what I thought about them getting a shitting and crying machine. But they’re just making these decisions,  _ keeping them from me _ , like- like it’s  _ okay _ now that I’m in the senior division. This is the  _ defining year _ in my career and they’re just-

“And they’re not even talking about adopting, they want a real baby, so Yuuri can be a real dad, which is just- what _ ever _ . I don’t care. He’s not my father, so he can get a dumb baby all he wants.”

Ah, that might have been a little too much. Yuri presses his eyes shut and bites the inside of his cheek.

It’s stupid, it’s  _ so fucking stupid _ , and he knows flying to Kazakhstan is childish, he knows he’s throwing a hissy fit for attention. He  _ knows _ . But it’s not like it doesn’t hurt knowing they need to get another kid because somehow Yuri isn’t enough, even if he wins everything.

Even if he tries his best, even if-

There’s a tap against his cheek and he opens his eyes, and glares at Beka.

“You got that from Yuuri, you know. Biting the inside of your cheek.”

Yuri stops, and reaches up to throw one of the pillows at Otabek.

Otabek catches it easily and sets it on his lap, over Yuri’s legs.

“Remember Yuuri’s last Four Continents.”

Yuri squints suspiciously at him, not sure where this is going. “No. I was sick.”

“Kazakhstan was competing. My coach was in charge of one of the skaters and he decided to bring me along to observe what it would be like when I moved to seniors.” Otabek isn’t the kind of person who talks a lot, so when he talks, you listen. “Before the short program your parents came say hi to me. They told me you were sick and staying with your Grandpa.”

Beka keeps his tone low and even. He’s not really looking at Yuri, but Yuri’s looking at him, frowning.

“Before the free skate, I found Yuuri sitting alone in a corner. I mean no offense when I say he looked horrible. I asked what was wrong, and apparently you got sicker and your dad had flown back to be with you. Yuuri wanted to withdraw from the competition to go with him, but he had placed high and as Japan’s Ace he couldn’t let his country down. That might’ve been the first time I realized the weight of what representing your country meant.”

That’s a big statement coming from the hero of Kazakhstan. Yuri has the weight of Russia on his shoulders, but he knows he’s not supporting it alone. He has Dad and Yuuri at his side, he has Yakov who’s still the best coach in Russia, even if he’s mostly retired now. He’s not shouldering it alone.

Not like Yuuri or like Beka seem to be.

“I asked him if it was alright for him to skate and he told me ‘Yuri will like a gold medal as a get well gift, don’t you think?’. That’s when I figured he wasn’t skating just so he wouldn’t disappoint his country, but also because he didn’t want to disappoint  _ you _ .”

Yuri worries the inside of his cheek back between his teeth, guilt weighting him down.

“He won gold that season,” Yuri recalls.

“He did,” Beka says. “He also missed the medal ceremony. The results were barely announced when Yuuri left for the airport. He’d either make his flight back to Moscow or he’d make the medal ceremony. The media hounded him for months after that.”

“I don’t remember that.”

But then again Yuri had been in the hospital for a couple of days with pneumonia, and he’d been put on bed rest for almost two weeks, which had been unnecessarily long but both Dad and Yuuri just wanted to  _ make sure _ .

“Yuuri loves you,” Otabek states, quite seriously. “This isn’t them trying to replace you. This is them adding to your family, just like they added to your family when they adopted Potya and Sochi and Zuzu.”

Yuri grabs a nearby pillow and screams into it, trying to suffocate himself.

“I hate your good reasoning and common sense,” Yuri mumbles into the cotton.

“Sucks,” Beka says.

Yuri digs his heel into Beka’s thigh to shut him up.

“I still don’t like kids,” he argues.

“You like my sister.”

Yuri lifts the pillow from his face and gives him a  _ look _ . “Once I saw your little sister bite a chili pepper to prove a point. That was the most metal fucking thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“She cried and we had to take her to the hospital.”

“ _ Still _ . Metal as  _ fuck _ .”

 

 

**Е.**

“We there?” Masha asks, slumping on top of Yuri’s head, letting her chubby arms dangle down.

“Not yet.”

“Now?”

“No.”

“Now?”

“No.”

“ _ Now _ ?”

“No, Masha. Stop being a brat.”

“Brat,” she parrots back at him sounding put out by Yuri’s apparently inability to find the ice cream shop and give her ice cream like he promised.

It’s not Yuri’s fault that the directions the guy at the hotel reception gave him were very unclear. And it’s also not his fault that Masha had been screeching while Yuri had been trying to get directions.

Masha knocks her hand against Yuri’s sunglasses.

“These are  _ Gucci _ , you little heathen.” Yuri catches in his peripheral vision her moving her arm, and adds, “And don’t you dare throw your sunglasses on the floor. I  _ paid _ for those.”

He reaches up and grabs her hands, using those to balance her on his shoulders, instead of her legs like he’d been doing.

Not to mention that it would ruin the aesthetics Yuri worked so hard to achieve. It’s hard to look cool when you’re carrying your little sister around on your shoulders. It’s a little less hard if you buy her tiny Gucci sunglasses and make her wear a snapback.

“Yunii, ‘m hot!” she whines, melting further into him.

Under normal circumstances, Yuri would’ve just kept walking until he found the ice cream shop his own damn self. But with a two year old with him, he doesn’t really want to risk wandering around until one of them dies of heatstroke.

So he pulls out his phone and dials Beka.

He may stoop low enough to call for help, but he won’t stoop to the point of calling his own parents and admitting he got lost.

He’s twenty years old, he has passed the age limit in which getting lost is acceptable.

“I’m not lost,” is what he says as soon as Beka picks up the phone.

“I’m already coming to get you,” Beka says back. “Don’t move, I’ll be there in three.”

The line goes dead and Yuri gets his phone away from his ear, looking for a nice place in the shade where they can rest.

He sits under a tree, doesn’t bother getting Masha down from his shoulders, and looks for the best selfie angle until Beka comes.

«»

“Are you having fun?” Beka asks, flatly.

Yuri grins and keeps snapping pictures. “I’m having the time of my life right now.”

Otabek gives him the  _ oh well as long as you’re having fun _ smile.

Masha pokes Beka in the cheek with another spoonful of dripping ice cream.

“Ahhhhhh,” she says, poking him until Beka opens his mouth and lets her feed him ice cream.

Yuri snaps another picture, and slouches in the sun-warm chair. They’d found the ice cream shop, which had been a blessing because Masha was on the verge of a meltdown. Now she’s full of ice cream and about ready to take a nap. Hopefully they can coax her into one before she starts getting crabby.

“Mashenka, don’t you want ice cream?” Beka asks.

She scrunches up her whole face and turns away, shoving her spoon in the melted ice cream left on Beka’s cup.

“She doesn’t like it when it’s melted,” Yuri supplies, picking the best filter to highlight the ice cream smudged all over Beka’s cheeks.

Beka hums, and Yuri looks up from his phone at him.

“Don’t give me that look,” Yuri tells him.

“What look?”

“Like you’re endeared or something. Stop, it’s gross.”

The look on Beka’s face aggravates and Yuri huffs, looking away.

“Yunii!” Masha says, trying to climb on top of the table to get to him.

Beka passes her over, and Yuri sets her on his lap, turning her snapback around to make a proper hat.

Masha gets her grubby little hands in his pockets until she finds her pacifier and proceeds to shove it in the melted ice cream before putting it in her mouth and leaning back against Yuri’s chest like it’s her personal throne.

“Brat,” Yuri huffs, adjusting her.

Beka is still looking at him like  _ that _ .

“I told you to stop.”

“You’re a good brother.”

“Shut up and wipe the ice cream off your face.”

«»

Yuri bursts through the door linking his and his parents’ hotel rooms. They just came from dinner and Yuri has spent approximately an hour and a half getting ready to go clubbing with Beka.

“Beka and I are going out,” he announces.

Dad stops from his bouncy pacing as he tries to put Masha to sleep and gives him a once over. “In  _ those _ jeans? Also what did you do to your  _ hair _ ? Have you been using the conditioner I told you about?”

Yuuri peeks through the bathroom’s doorway, takes a look at Yuri and starts towards Dad, plucking Masha from his arms and resuming the bouncing. “Go help him fix that, I’ll put her to sleep.”

Dad kisses him on the cheek and Yuri rolls his eyes at them, even as he follows Dad into the bathroom and lets him re-do his hair. Somewhere out there, there’s a version of him who doesn’t have to endure this type of coddling.

“Is Otabek going to be drinking too?” Dad asks, picking up a hairbrush and untying Yuri’s hair.

“Yeah.”

He hums. “Take your phone with you and call us when you want to come back. We’ll pick you up, okay? Mashenka wants to go to the pool in the morning so try not to be too hungover.”

“I am on  _ vacation _ ,” he huffs.

“ _ Family _ vacation, Yura. Where we do  _ family _ activities.”

“Like pawning Masha off on me so you can screw your husband? That kind of family activity?”

Dad gives him a smug look in the mirror, finishes doing up Yuri’s hair and pushes him gently out the door.

“Have fun, don’t do anything I would at your age!”

“You could at least look a little bit sorry.”

“There is nothing to be sorry about in loving and appreciating my beautiful husband,” Dad says like he is imparting great wisdom upon him.

“Disgusting,” Yuri says, more because at this point it’s tradition for him to, than anything else. “Don’t stay up.”

“We will absolutely try to stay up. Call us when you want to come back, no drinking and driving! Change those jeans!”

«»

Dad passes by his pool chair and presses a Bloody Mary into Yuri’s hands.

“I am literally dying. This is torture, please let me go back to the room,” he begs, squinting his eyes shut behind his sunglasses. Maybe he should get another pair and stack them on top of the ones he has on now for extra protection.

“Family vacation,” he singsongs. “You were warned. Now drink that and sit up, Otabek is going to put sunscreen on you while I go make sure Masha doesn’t try jumping in the pool without her floaties on.”

“I hate you.”

“Love you too,” he says, and throws a bottle of sunscreen at Otabek.

Otabek fumbles for it a little bit, slowly getting up from the pool chair next to Yuri and sitting behind him. It’s really not fair how well he seems to be doing when Yuri is ready to go drown himself to stop his splitting headache.

“How are you not  _ dying _ ?”

“I clearly am.”

Yuri turns and squints at Otabek’s impassive face. He reaches over and pushes his sunglasses up to his forehead so he can see the death by hangover reflected in Otabek’s eyes.

He lets Beka’s sunglasses drop back to the bridge of his nose and offers him a sip of his drink. “You could’ve stayed in the room.

“Your Dad said that it was a family vacation so I had to participate in the family activities since I’m family.”

“I mean  _ obviously _ you are but he could at least have the decency of letting us sleep in when we babysat the brat all afternoon yesterday,” Yuri says, turning around and taking a swig of his Bloody Mary.

Beka squishes sunscreen directly onto Yuri’s back and starts spreading it around. “I don’t mind.”

“You wouldn’t, you big fucking sap,” he huffs, hanging his head so the sun isn’t beating on his face directly. And then, “when you’re done I can do your back if you can’t reach.”

“Thanks, Yura.”

 

 

**+A.**

It’s three am and Yuri Plisetsky for once in his life is not lost in a foreign country.

He supposes he might look a little lost, sitting on the floor of a hotel hallway with his suit jacket discarded next to him, his dress shirt untucked, with the sleeves rolled up and the first couple of buttons unbuttoned. He still has the gold medal he won at World’s, and he turns it slowly between his fingers. The metal has gone warm from how long he’s been holding it.

Tonight was his fifth win at World’s, and he’s waiting for the weight of it to hit him, but it hasn’t yet.

“Lost?” Otabek asks, walking slowly towards Yuri.

He’s lost his jacket and untied his tie somewhere along the way. The banquets are always too stuffy for you to keep your formal-wear looking proper after you leave. Ties are never after-party friendly, anyway.

“This your room?” Yuri asks, pointing at the door he’s sitting beside.

“Yeah.”

“Then I’m not lost.”

He expects Beka to open the door and invite him inside, but instead he picks up Yuri’s jacket from the floor, folds it neatly and sits next to him.

They’re shoulder to shoulder like this, and Yuri slouches a little bit against him so they’re more or less at the same height, and those centimeters he has on him aren’t as noticeable.

It’s a familiar position to be in: Yuri just on the edge of something and Beka waiting for him.

“Congrats on your gold,” Beka says.

Yuri looks over at him and sees what he’s asking.  _ Why are you outside my room at 3am _ .

“Congrats on your silver. You’re still pretty spry for an old man.”

Beka bumps their shoulders together, and it jolts Yuri a little. “I think I still have a few years in me.”

“ _ Good _ , because like hell am I letting you retire before I’m ready to. Who’d I compete against?  _ JJ _ ?” He makes a disgusted face at the notion of it.

“Jean-Jacques isn’t that bad.”

“Don’t be disgusting, Beka. I’m having a midlife crisis, I don’t need you telling me these things to worsen my mood.”

“You’re twenty-three,” Beka says, with that little amused quirk to his lips.

“Midlife for a skater,” Yuri insists.

They lapse into silence for a bit. Yuri slides down the wall until he can lean his head on Beka’s shoulder. One of the only downsides of being taller than Otabek, even if it’s not by a whole lot, is that he can’t comfortably lean on him like he used to.

“This is my fifth gold in Senior Worlds, and I keep expecting something to happen, but it just- doesn’t.” He holds up his medal, letting it dangle from two fingers. “It’s stupid.”

“It’s never stupid.”

Yuri quirks an eyebrow at him. “Remember when I was fifteen and flew to Kazakhstan without my parents knowing because I was jealous of my unborn younger sister?”

“Okay, maybe that was a little stupid, but your feelings were valid.”

Yuri snorts, slaps Beka’s thigh lightly with the back of his hand. “What are you? My therapist? I  _ know _ my feelings are valid. You’ve met my parents, you know how they are with making sure they validate my feelings, even if my feelings for a bit there were mostly just teenage angst.”

Beka huffs a breath of laughter and Yuri melts further into him.

They lapse into silence and he lets it stretch for a minute or two before he makes himself speak up again.

“I keep expecting to fall into a pit of depression. To peek in my career and feel myself become stagnant. Dad he- he likes to speak about how he only learned the meaning of life and love in his late twenties. First, when he got me, and then when he met Yuuri and he allowed himself to really start to live.

“Can you imagine that? Not really allowing yourself anything but your sport for over twenty years?”

“No. I don’t think I could.”

Yuri bites the inside of his cheek. “I always took it as a sort of prophetic tale. That as soon as I hit my twenties I’d start seeing the bleakness in skating, and as soon as I had my fifth consecutive gold I’d spiral into depression and stagnation and then I’d have to go out there look for life and love.

“Every season I win gold in every major competition, there’s always a moment where I think  _ this is it, this is how I start spiraling _ .”

“Yuri if you ever-“

“ _ I know _ ,” Yuri interrupts, and sits up a little, looks Otabek in the eye and lets his medal drop to his lap. “That’s the thing. I know if I needed anything I’d have you and my parents, and Grandpa and everyone back in Hasetsu. Dad didn’t have that. He had skating, and I have  _ so much more _ . I have life already, you know.

“Today one of my sponsors asked me about getting married and having children, and I couldn’t picture it with anyone. I can’t fathom getting a nice boy or girl and marry. It felt- wrong, like I was trying to get something to fill an already full space.”

He pauses. Here comes the hard part.

“Then I remembered how earlier Dad was fixing my tie, because I still hate the stupid things and I refuse to learn how to tie one properly on  _ principle _ . He asked me what I was going to do when I didn’t have them around anymore to do it for me, and I said-“

He ducks his head then, fixing his eyes on the deep green of Beka’s handkerchief peeking out of his breast pocket.

“I said  _ Beka can do it for me _ , because every time I picture any kind of future I might have you’re there, and then I thought I don’t want to wait until I’m twenty-seven to figure out the love part of the deal so I figured I should try it out with someone I already have…  _ feelings _ for.”

He looks up at Beka then, taking in his slack-jawed expression.

Now or never, he guesses.

“So. Are you going to date me or what?”

Beka stares for a couple of seconds, long enough to make Yuri start to get nervous, before slowly bringing up his hand and giving him a thumbs up.

Yuri pushes him over and presses him into the floor as Beka laughs at him.

“I changed my mind. You’re terrible. How dare you give me a thumbs up when I have bared my soul to you! Love isn’t worth this, I’m going to stay single forever,” he says, trying not to feel overwhelmed that Beka said yes and he possibly, probably likes him too.

Otabek sits back up and Yuri almost wants to duck away from his soft open expression. He’s grown up with him, he’s well-versed in reading the minute details in Otabek’s expression to know exactly what he’s thinking, and while Beka is, as a general rule, more open and relaxed around him, he only reserves this type of open naked affection for special occasions.

“Yura-“

“God, shut up. I can’t look at your face right now.”

“That’s going to be a problem, since you want to date me and all,” Beka says, and very tentatively puts a hand on Yuri’s cheek.

Yuri flushes, still not looking directly at him.

“Bring your Dumbo ears over here and kiss me instead of making fun of me, how about that?”

Beka doesn’t.

He just  _ looks _ at Yuri, like he’s trying to figure something out, before he says, “why do you want to date me?”

“I just told you why.”

“Because I’m convenient.”

Yuri frowns jerks back. “That’s  _ not _ what I said.”

Beka raises his eyebrows and gives him a  _ that’s not what you meant but that’s what you said _ look _. _

“Tell me better,” Beka asks.

Yuri huffs and rubs his cheek on his shoulder, feeling stupid and adolescent.

“Be _ cause _ you’re my best friend, and you’re really hot and sometimes you smile at me and I feel like I’m being punched in the trachea. You’re the best person I know, and you’ve taken all of my affection. I have no space for anyone else.” He clears his throat, looking somewhere in the vicinity of the hotel’s carpeted floor. “You know, or something.”

Beka’s fingers touch his chin, and coax Yuri into raising his head and meeting his eyes. It’s probably one of the hardest things he’s ever done in his life, looking directly into someone’s eyes with the possibility of rejection, but Yuri’s nothing if not defiant, so he does it.

Beka’s smiling, his eyes the warmest they’ve ever been in the orange toned hallway light.

“I haven’t known it for long but, you have all my love.” Yuri is going to throw up, or maybe cry, or maybe laugh until there’s no breath in him, because Beka apparently has a nasty habit of stealing all his breath away. “I’m going to kiss you now,” Beka says, quite seriously.

Beka starts inching slowly closer, and Yuri, quite frankly has no patience for it. He grabs Beka by the cheeks and kisses him as softly as he’s ever kissed anyone in his life.

He’s not sure what’s different between kissing Beka and kissing all those other people he has kissed is, but he decides that kissing Beka is infinitely better and, if given half the chance, he won’t stop doing it anytime soon.

“You can’t just say stuff like that,” Yuri tells him. “You big fucking sap, I’m gonna make fun of you forever for that one.”

“I don’t mind.”

Yuri huffs an amused breath and kisses him just once more. Then a couple more times, just to make sure it’s still good, and it is.

When he’s more or less satisfied and thinks if his cheeks get any redder he’ll spontaneously combust or something equally dramatic, he pulls back and leans back against Beka’s shoulder. Beka rests his head on top of Yuri’s. Yuri grabs his hand.

It’s not a new feeling exactly. He’s felt like this on some capacity every time he saw Beka for the last couple of years, with little spikes in it whenever he got himself lost and Beka always, without fail, found him. Holding Beka’s dumb hand in a deserted hotel hallway at 3 am feels a lot like the certainty that even if he finds himself in the back alley of some godforsaken forgotten neighborhood, Beka will still find him and drag him back to where he’s supposed to be. It’s like that feeling has been amplified and there’s a new steadiness to it, like a foundation set strong enough to build an entire town upon.

“You know what this means right?” Yuri asks him, keeping his voice low.

“What?”

“I’m gonna steal all your fucking shirts.”

Otabek laughs, and Yuri feels him shift on top of him, feels lips press against his the crown of his head.

“That’s alright, I don’t mind.”

Yuri squeezes his hand and presses himself a little closer to him.

“Can I sleep in your room?” he asks.

“Yuri-“

“I’m not going to jump your dick, it’s just-“ Yuri cuts himself off.

“What?”

“I lost my room keys.”

**Author's Note:**

> *heelies past, wearing Gucci shades and drinking capri sun from a cocktail glass* this made me cry over a rock, my dudes


End file.
